Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Other projects have been demanding my free time lately (aka nap time), so to have a little stamping time I had to go downstairs once the kiddos were all in bed.....way past their bedtime and mine! I do admit, I had a lot of fun creating with Stampin' Up!'s new Garden In Bloom set again. I would have stayed up a while longer to keep creating, but I realized that my cute little alarm clocks always come wake me up so there will be no catching up on lost sleep. So, one card is all I made, and I'm okay with that.

This card is for the Picture Inspiration Challenge over at Stampin' Royalty. Immediately I was drawn to the fun colors, so I created this card with Calypso Coral, Daffodil Delight, and Pear Pizazz. I stamped Coral butterflies on my Coral card base and white butterfly outlines on my Pear layer. I added some Daffodil paper from the new Brights DSP stack and layered that onto some white card stock (the bottom edge is done with the tiny wave rotary blade for the Stampin' Trimmer). For my main panel, I stamped the outlines in Basic Gray. The "thank you" is from the Work of Art set. Each new catalog I find some great new go-to sets, and this Garden In Bloom set is becoming a fast favorite! I can't wait to use it more!

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

This week I had a few minutes to try out more new stamps. Today's card features the new Watercolor Wings photopolymer set along with the new Fluttering embossing folder.

This week's challenge at Stampin' Royalty is a color challenge (Lost Lagoon, Soft Sky, Crumb Cake, and Calypso Coral). Sometimes I get stuck in a rut and stick with the same few colors, so it's fun to play along and try out some new color combos. I used the four challenge colors along with some white card stock and ink and this is what I came up with.

I stamped the solid butterfly from the Watercolor Wings stamp set with my Whisper White craft ink to help the butterflies stand out a little on the Crumb Cake card stock. For the blue butterflies, I stamped the inner layer with Soft Sky and the outline layer with Lost Lagoon. For the coral butterfly, I stamped another inner layer as well as the outline layer in Calypso Coral. For the greeting I stamped it in white first and then in Lost Lagoon (the white helps it stand out a bit). I textured the Soft Sky card stock with the Fluttering embossing folder and added some Calypso Coral seam binding ribbon around it before mounting it onto the Crumb Cake card base.

I know the Watercolor Wings set has a lot of potential and I can't wait to try it out some more. Check back soon for more ideas :)

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Summer is here! Last week my order of new stamps arrived but I didn't have much of a chance to play with it because of all the last week of school festivities. Even though I didn't get to use my new stamps, I had a lot of fun reading to first graders, spending an afternoon in the sun helping with Field Day, and making last minute thank you gifts for teachers, staff, and administrators. I can't believe that another school year has already come and gone! Now we have 11 weeks of Summer until we're back in the school routine, I'm sure they'll fly by.

On Monday I was hoping to take advantage of some nap time stamping, but instead spent the time trying to help my older two establish some Summertime routines. So, once everyone was in bed for the night (and unfortunately it was an hour or so later than their usual bedtime), I finally had the chance to use some new product. I decided to start out by making a project for the challenge over at Stampin' Royalty. This week's challenge is to make anything but a card, so I came up with a fun little box that features the new Garden in Bloom photopolymer stamp set. I love this stamp set, it reminds me of so many fun 2-step stampin' sets that were around maybe 15 years ago (the type of sets that really made me fall in love with Stampin' Up!). I almost felt like I was stamping with a long lost friend when I used them, and it felt good to be back together!
I started out by cutting a sheet of white and a sheet of Soft Sky card stock down to 6"x6". For the bottom of the box, I scored the Soft Sky card stock 1-1/16" from each edge and then cut the corners and folded it into a box. That way the width of the box was almost 4" square. For the top of the box, I scored the white card stock at 1" from each side (that way it would be just a tiny bit bigger than the base and then it would fit over the base easily). I wanted some of the color from the base to show, so after scoring, I trimmed 1/4" off each side. In the past I've tried cutting the lid smaller to begin with, but I find it's easier to figure the math if I score first and then cut (and then I waste less paper from mistakes). I stamped images from the Garden in Bloom all over the lid of my box before folding it. I used Melon Mambo/Pink Pirouette, Crushed Curry/So Saffron, Pacific Point/Soft Sky, and Cucumber Crush/Cucumber Crush stamped off once.

For the tag, I stamped the word "enjoy" from the Endless Birthday Wishes photopolymer stamp set in Melon Mambo and then stamped the small butterfly images from the Garden in Bloom set. I punched that out with the oval punch, then layered it on some Pink Pirouette punched with the scalloped oval, and finally layered that onto some Soft Sky punched with the decorative label punch. I punched a 1/8" hole into my tag so that I could tie some ribbon through it. I used Melon Mambo cotton ribbon to tie my box closed, and instead of putting one end of the ribbon through my tag hole, I brought both sides up through it so that my bow would sit completely on top of the tag. Have you used your stamps to make something besides a card lately?

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

What was I up to last week? It was the last week of school and I spent more time at the school than usual. I was hoping to make a bunch of packs of cards (6 in each pack) to use as thank you gifts for teachers, staff, and school administrators. The week flew by and Friday came and I still didn't have the packs made. I looked thorough my stash of cards and realized that I didn't have enough cards so I thought that I'd have to just let it go this year. Well, on Friday our whole family joined my daughter's school at the last day of school concert (an awesome concert in the park with a couple of real musicians). After the concert, we came home and my little one took a nap. I got this crazy idea that I could bust through a bunch of cards in the 2-3 hours until school was out. So, I enlisted my preschooler's help and we went to work!

I decided on these "you made my day" cards that I had designed a few months ago, but I changed up the greeting and colors. Instead of giving everyone an assorted pack, I chose to make each pack have just one main color. Did you know that preschoolers are excellent punchers and they actually enjoy giving free labor? My little guy punched out 72 flowers in no time and then he proceeded to peel of Stampin' Dimensionals so that I could adhere all of the colored flowers to my cards. I honestly couldn't have finished these cards without him.

All of the cards have a white card base and then a Soft Sky background. I stamped "you made my day" from the Best Day Ever Sale-a-Bration set. I added some green stems from the Painted Petals stamp set and then punched that out with my 2-1/2" circle punch. I added the flowers punched with the Petite Petals set and then added a little rhinestone jewel in each center. On the Soft Sky background, I stamped the bokeh stamp from the Best Day Ever to fill it in a bit. Then I tied some coordinating ribbon around the card stock before adhering it to my white card base.

I finished with a little time to spare, so I decided that my card packs needed some tags to go with them, so I made 3x3 cards using the Decorative Label Punch, the Painted Petals set, and the Petite Petals punch. I'm glad I had a few spare hours so I could do a little something for those that do so much for the kids at the school. Nothing like doing things at the last minute, but if it wasn't for the last minute, a lot of things wouldn't get done!

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

I'm excited! This month I have the privilege of being a Guest Designer for one of my favorite blog challenges Stampin' Royalty. Today's challenge at Stampin' Royalty is to create a Masculine Project. What perfect timing--just before Father's Day. Go ahead and join us this week so you can get your Father's Day cards done before the last minute. I admit, I struggle a bit with the masculine cards. I guess I just love the bright and girly colors more and I love adding ribbon to my cards. Well, I successfully created a card without flowers and frills (although I was very tempted to sneak in some ribbon, but I resisted). My card even got my husband's seal of approval.

Speaking of my husband, he has been pretty supportive of my hobby (addiction?) for the past 13 years. When my husband and I were dating, my sister strongly suggested that I not show him my craft room until after I had a ring, she thought I'd scare him off--and I thought I had a lot of craft stuff then. When we were engaged, he took me out for my birthday and drove me 30 minutes in the opposite direction from our destination just so I could go get a new catalog to look at (my downline got hers that day and I couldn't wait to see it) and then put up with me scouring the catalog instead of paying a lot of attention to him the rest of the drive. He's always thought that the Stampin' Up! colors have silly names and he likes to poke fun of them at times. He never liked it when a color was called what it wasn't (Not Quite Navy, Almost Amethyst) because he said that they should call a color what it is instead of what it isn't. When I told him I was making a masculine card for this blog challenge, he initially suggested that I use Gross Green and Beautiful Brown, but then changed his mind and thought of colors such as Gorgeous Green, Galactic Green, Burly Brown, or Righteous Red. I laughed and quickly wrote his suggestions down because I knew they'd be great for a blog post :) The funny thing is, sometimes he's actually pretty good at guessing the color names. When we had been married for just two years, we were in Walt Disney
World and he commented that one of the monorails looked like it was
Luscious Lemon and Stampin' Up! used to have a color called Luscious Lime.

I decided to go along with his suggestions when picking the color scheme for this card, so I used Mossy Meadow and Crumb Cake. Now don't those names just scream masculine, lol? At least the actual colors do, they give me a National Park kind of feel. I used the Pictogram Punches stamp set for the star and punched a few out with the star from the Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack. I absolutely love Stampin' Up!'s Textured Impressions Embossing Folders, so I used the Lucky Stars embossing folder on the white card stock. I cut out the "happy" with the Hello You thinlits and stamped the "Father's Day" from the Crazy About You stamp set. I'm so happy that the thinlits and stamp set both made it into the new Stampin' Up! Catalog. I cut the banner by cutting a strip of card stock and then punched the end of it with the hexagon punch to give it the banner shape. However, now they have a nifty new banner punch to make it even easier! I just need to get my hands on one of those punches.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back and visit again! And, Happy Father's Day in a few weeks to all of you fathers out there, especially to the father of my kids!

About Me

I have been an independent Stampin' Up!® Demonstrator for nearly 18 years now--how time flies when you're having fun! Products used in my projects are made by Stampin' Up!® and can be purchased from my personal demonstrator website at www.shaunacundick.stampinup.com.
I hope this blog gives you ideas and inspires you to create your own projects. Please use the ideas for your own personal use and please give credit where credit is due.